Iran urges visiting Hamas leader Meshal to keep resisting Israel

By News Agencies

The United
States and Israel accuse Iran of sponsoring terrorism, including the
Palestinian group Hamas and Lebanon's Shi'ite Muslim Hezbollah group.
Tehran denies the charges.

"The [Palestinian] government should use
its brave and pious forces to continue resistance against the Zionist
regime [Israel]," Ahmadinejad told Meshal at the start of his two-day
visit to Iran, state television reported.

Meanwhile, Meshal on
Tuesday extracted from Iran a pledge to fund his radical Palestinian
movement to compensate for the West's financial blockade of the
Palestinian government.

Iran refuses to recognize Israel and
Ahmadinejad has called Israel a "tumor" which must be "wiped off the map."
Iran's support for the Palestinians has grown more vocal since Ahmadinejad
came to power in August 2005.

Hamas and Fatah reached an agreement
last month in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, to form a unity government, in a bid to
end Palestinian infighting.

Washington has warned Abbas that peace
talks with Israel will go nowhere if his Fatah faction joins the agreed
unity government with Hamas, which refuses to recognize
Israel.

Meshal said Hamas had no intention of changing its policy
to recognize Israel. "Our stance remains the same as before the Mecca
deal," he told reporters after meeting Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr
Mottaki, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

Israel has
vowed to boycott the unity government unless it agrees to recognize
Israel, renounce violence and accept interim peace deals.

Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert plans to meet Abbas as early as Sunday, before the
unity government is formed, Israeli officials said on
Tuesday.

Meshal praised Iran for its "financial, political and
moral" support to the Palestinian nation and the government.

"We
are looking forward for Iran's support to the Palestinian nation and
government ... to break Palestine's economic and political isolation,"
Meshal said.

Shi'ite Muslim Iran has offered financial support
after a shortfall caused by a Western financial blockade on the Hamas-led
government since last year.

Meshal secures Iranian pledge of fundMeshal
extracted from Iran a pledge to fund his radical Palestinian movement to
compensate for the West's financial blockade of the Palestinian
government.

Meshal, who arrived in Iran early Tuesday, told a press
conference with Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki that Iran had been
giving financial and political support to the Palestinians, whose
government has been cut off from Western aid since Hamas took office in
March last year.

"We still look forward to get support [from Iran]
to break the political and economic sanctions," Meshal
said.

Mottaki told reporters that Iran would continue to provide
money to Hamas, but he did not give any figures.

Iran is known to
have given $120 million to Hamas since it took office following its
victory in the Palestinian legislative elections. But there was no word
Tuesday on what more would be donated.

The major aid donors to the
Palestinian Authority - the United States, the European Union and Canada -
cut off aid because Hamas has refused to renounce violence and recognize
Israel and the previous agreements signed between Israel and the
Palestinians.

Last month, Meshal and Palestinian Authority Chairman
Mahmoud Abbas signed a Saudi-brokered agreement in Mecca under which they
would form a coalition government and Hamas promised to respect the
previous agreements.

The United States and others are waiting for
the coalition to be formed before declaring whether the Mecca agreement
warrants a resumption of aid.

Mottaki has said his government
backed the Mecca accord. Iran supports this initiative, and it also
supports any step toward achieving greater unity among Palestinians, the
foreign minister said.

Iran had close ties with Israel when Shah
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was in power. However after the shah was toppled in
the 1979 Islamic revolution, the new Iranian government broke ties with
Israel and turned the former Israeli Embassy into a Palestinian
embassy.